[Racal] Ra1792 BITE

[Dan Rae]

Bob Nottage wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm the proud new owner of an RA1792 and I'm very happy with it
> but a bit confused over the BITE function/option.
> There is nothing in the 'Operator's Manual' about BITE and the
> set doesn't appear to go thru a selftest on startup.
> Is there a way to manually run a test or is the testing transparent to
> the user until a problem appears?
> Or maybe this set doesn't have BITE  at all.

The BITE on these is complicated and has most of Chapter 5 of the
service manual devoted to it....
Briefly it is started by closing the middle switch of the bank of little
switches on the A9A2 board inside, pressing "REMOTE" and then 0 and 1 in
turn.  The manual has large flow charts to tell you what to do if a
failure number comes up.

But basically if your radio is working, why bother?  If you do get a
fault then you'll need the book anyway.

 As everyone will tell you, the most common fault is the Tantalum Bead
Capacitors dying.  The tend to go dead short circuit, usually when the
set is off for some reason, so you get a nice surprise when you next
turn it on.  I got mine with a total of 5 dead ones in it, so I bit the
bullet and changed them all.  It's been fine ever since, touch wood.
> 
> Serial is RAC 12093 on the front tab - probably a Ministry #
> On the rear Option GA/52/0/0/0/A Serial 11281.

GA is the filter set, from memory, I think it has the one 3 KHz filter
and does an offset for sideband selection.  I've lost the bit of paper
that had the rest on it, maybe someone else can oblige.  The 1 Hz or 10
Hz tuning step options and the 100 channel memory scan / scan in groups
of 10 options are done in firmware and the ROMs can be changed, if you
can find them.  But you are in a better position than us to say what
your radio has in it :^)

> 
> The only negative is just one phone socket, which knocks off
> the speaker when in use......

Doesn't worry me much!
> 
> Finally, does anyone know of a source for the SCORE option?

Hard to find, that's all I know.

A good resource for Racal is Keith's site:

 http://www.recelectronics.demon.co.uk/index.htm
 
But I know that Keith's been looking for a Score card for a while!

I'm sure you can find a manual over there, try putting an Ad up on
Keith's notice Board, and see what comes up. I'm in southern California
so not much use for that,

73,
Dan ac6ao g3ncr